Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 3 of 3

by Henry Hallam

Infringements of the toleration by statutes under Anne.—In the last four years of the queen's reign, some inroads had been made on the toleration granted to dissenters, whom the high-church party held in abhorrence. They had for a long time inveighed against what was called occasional conformity, or the compliance of dissenters with the provisions of the test act in order merely to qualify themselves for holding office, or entering into corporations. Nothing could, in the eyes of sensible men, be more advantageous to the church, if a re-union of those who had separated from it were advantageous, than this practice. Admitting even that the motive was self-interested, has an established government, in church or state, any better ally than the self-interestedness of mankind? Was it not what a presbyterian or independent minister would denounce as a base and worldly sacrifice? and if so, was not the interest of the Anglican clergy exactly in an inverse proportion to this? Any one competent to judge of human affairs would predict, what has turned out to be the case, that when the barrier was once taken down for the sake of convenience, it would not be raised again for conscience; that the most latitudinarian theory, the most lukewarm dispositions in religion, must be prodigiously favourable to the reigning sect; and that the dissenting clergy, though they might retain, or even extend, their influence over the multitude, would gradually lose it with those classes who could be affected by the test. But, even if the tory faction had been cool-headed enough for such reflections, it has, unfortunately, been sometimes less the aim of the clergy to reconcile those who differ from them than to keep them in a state of dishonour and depression. Hence, in the first parliament of Anne, a bill to prevent occasional conformity more than once passed the Commons; and, on its being rejected by the Lords, a great majority of William's bishops voting against the measure, it was sent up again in a very reprehensible manner, tacked, as it was called, to a grant of money; so that, according to the pretension of the Commons in respect to such bills, the upper house must either refuse the supply, or consent to what they disapproved.[355] This however having miscarried, and the next parliament being of better principles, nothing farther was done till 1711, when Lord Nottingham, a vehement high-churchman, having united with the whigs against the treaty of peace, they were injudicious enough to gratify him by concurring in a bill to prevent occasional conformity.[356] This was followed up by the ministry in a more decisive attack on the toleration, an act for preventing the growth of schism, which extended and confirmed one of Charles II., enforcing on all schoolmasters, and even on all teachers in private families, a declaration of conformity to the established church, to be made before the bishop, from whom a licence for exercising that profession was also to be obtained.[357] It is impossible to doubt for an instant, that if the queen's life had preserved the tory government for a few years, every vestige of the toleration would have been effaced.

These statutes, records of their adversaries' power, the whigs, now lords of the ascendant, determined to abrogate. The dissenters were unanimously zealous for the house of Hanover and for the ministry; the church of very doubtful loyalty to the Crown, and still less affection to the whig name. In the session of 1719, accordingly, the act against occasional conformity, and that restraining education, were repealed.[358] It had been the intention to have also repealed the test act; but the disunion then prevailing among the whigs had caused so formidable an opposition even to the former measures, that it was found necessary to abandon that project. Walpole, more cautious and moderate than the ministry of 1719, perceived the advantage of reconciling the church as far as possible to the royal family and to his own government; and it seems to have been an article in the tacit compromise with the bishops, who were not backward in exerting their influence for the Crown, that he should make no attempt to abrogate the laws which gave a monopoly of power to the Anglican communion. We may presume also that the prelates undertook not to obstruct the acts of indemnity passed from time to time in favour of those who had not duly qualified themselves for the offices they held; and which, after some time becoming regular, have in effect thrown open the gates to protestant dissenters, though still subject to be closed by either house of parliament, if any jealousies should induce them to refuse their assent to this annual enactment.[359]

Principles of toleration fully established.—Meanwhile the principles of religious liberty, in all senses of the word, gained strength by this eager controversy, naturally pleasing as they are to the proud independence of the English character, and congenial to those of civil freedom, which both parties, tory as much as whig, had now learned sedulously to maintain. The non-juring and high-church factions among the clergy produced few eminent men; and lost credit, not more by the folly of their notions than by their general want of scholarship and disregard of their duties. The university of Oxford was tainted to the core with jacobite prejudices; but it must be added that it never stood so low in respectability as a place of education.[360] The government, on the other hand, was studious to promote distinguished men; and doubtless the hierarchy in the first sixty years of the eighteenth century might very advantageously be compared, in point of conspicuous ability, with that of any equal period that ensued. The maxims of persecution were silently abandoned, as well as its practice; Warburton, and others of less name, taught those of toleration with as much boldness as Hoadley, but without some of his more invidious tenets; the more popular writers took a liberal tone; the names of Locke and Montesquieu acquired immense authority; the courts of justice discountenanced any endeavour to revive oppressive statutes; and, not long after the end of George the Second's reign, it was adjudged in the House of Lords, upon the broadest principles of toleration laid down by Lord Mansfield, that nonconformity with the established church is recognised by the law, and not an offence at which it connives.

Banishment of Atterbury.—Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, the most distinguished of the party denominated high-church, became the victim of his restless character and implacable disaffection to the house of Hanover. The pretended king, for some years after his competitor's accession, had fair hopes from different powers of Europe—France, Sweden, Russia, Spain, Austria—(each of whom, in its turn, was ready to make use of this instrument), and from the powerful faction who panted for his restoration. This was unquestionably very numerous; though we have not as yet the means of fixing with certainty on more than comparatively a small number of names. But a conspiracy for an invasion from Spain and a simultaneous rising was detected in 1722, which implicated three or four peers, and among them the Bishop of Rochester.[361] The evidence, however, though tolerably convincing, being insufficient for a verdict at law, it was thought expedient to pass a bill of pains and penalties against this prelate, as well as others against two of his accomplices. The proof, besides many corroborating circumstances, consisted in three letters relative to the conspiracy, supposed to be written by his secretary Kelly, and appearing to be dictated by the bishop. He was deprived of his see, and banished the kingdom for life.[362] This met with strong opposition, not limited to the enemies of the royal family, and is open to the same objection as the attainder of Sir John Fenwick; the danger of setting aside those precious securities against a wicked government which the law of treason has furnished. As a vigorous assertion of the state's authority over the church we may commend the policy of Atterbury's deprivation; but perhaps this was ill purchased by a mischievous precedent. It is however the last act of a violent nature in any important matter, which can be charged against the English legislature.

Decline of the Jacobites.—No extensive conspiracy of the jacobite faction seems ever to have been in agitation after the fall of Atterbury. The Pretender had his emissaries perpetually alert; and it is understood that an enormous mass of letters from his English friends is in existence;[363] but very few had the courage, or rather folly, to plunge into so desperate a course as rebellion. Walpole's prudent and vigilant administration, without transgressing the boundaries of that free constitution for which alone the house of Brunswick had been preferred, kept in check the disaffected. He wisely sought the friendship of Cardinal Fleury, aware that no other power in Europe than France could effectually assist the banished family. After his own fall and the death of Fleury, new combinations of foreign policy arose; his successors returned to the Austrian connection; a war with France broke out; the grandson of James II. became master, for a moment, of Scotland, and even advanced to the centre of this peaceful and unprotected kingdom. But this was hardly more ignominious to the government than to the jacobites themselves; none of them joined the standard of their pretended sovereign; and the rebellion of 1745 was conclusive, by its own temporary success, against the possibility of his restoration.[364] From this time the government, even when in search of pretexts for alarm, could hardly affect to dread a name grown so contemptible as that of the Stuart party. It survived however for the rest of the reign of George II. in those magnanimous compotations, which had always been the best evidence of its courage and fidelity.

Prejudices against the reigning family.—Though the jacobite party had set before its eyes an object most dangerous to the public tranquillity, and which, could it have been attained, would have brought on again the contention of the seventeenth century; though, in taking oaths to a government against which they were in conspiracy, they showed a systematic disregard of obligation, and were as little mindful of allegiance, in the years 1715 and 1745, to the prince they owned in their hearts, as they had been to him whom they had professed to acknowledge, it ought to be admitted that they were rendered more numerous and formidable than was necessary by the faults of the reigning kings or of their ministers. They were not actuated for the most part (perhaps with very few exceptions) by the slavish principles of indefeasible right, much less by those of despotic power. They had been so long in opposition to the court, they had so often spoken the language of liberty, that we may justly believe them to have been its friends. It was the policy of Walpole to keep alive the strongest prejudice in the mind of George II., obstinately retentive of prejudice, as such narrow and passionate minds always are, against the whole body of the tories. They were ill received at court, and generally excluded, not only from those departments of office which the dominant party have a right to keep in their power, but from the commission of the peace, and every other subordinate trust.[365] This illiberal and selfish course retained many, no doubt, in the Pretender's camp, who must have perceived both the improbability of his restoration, and the difficulty of reconciling it with the safety of our constitution. He was indeed, as well as his son, far less worthy of respect than the contemporary Brunswick kings: without absolutely wanting capacity or courage, he gave the most undeniable evidence of his legitimacy by constantly resisting the counsels of wise men, and yielding to those of priests; while his son, the fugitive of Culloden, despised and deserted by his own party, insulted by the court of France, lost with the advance of years even the respect and compassion which wait on unceasing misfortune, the last sad inheritance of the house of Stuart.[366] But they were little known in England, and from unknown princes men are prone to hope much: if some could anticipate a redress of every evil from Frederic Prince of Wales, whom they might discover to be destitute of respectable qualities, it cannot be wondered at that others might draw equally flattering prognostics from the accession of Charles Edward. It is almost certain that, if either the claimant or his son had embraced the protestant religion, and had also manifested any superior strength of mind, the German prejudices of the reigning family would have cost them the throne, as they did the people's affections. Jacobitism, in the great majority, was one modification of the spirit of liberty burning strongly in the nation at this period. It gave a rallying point to that indefinite discontent, which is excited by an ill opinion of rulers, and to that disinterested, though ignorant patriotism which boils up in youthful minds. The government in possession was hated, not as usurped, but as corrupt; the banished line was demanded, not so much because it was legitimate, but because it was the fancied means of redressing grievances and regenerating the constitution. Such notions were doubtless absurd; but it is undeniable that they were common, and had been so almost from the revolution. I speak only, it will be observed, of the English jacobites; in Scotland the sentiments of loyalty and national pride had a vital energy, and the Highland chieftains gave their blood, as freely as their southern allies did their wine, for the cause of their ancient kings.

No one can have looked in the most cursory manner at the political writings of these two reigns, or at the debates of parliament, without being struck by the continual predictions that our liberties were on the point of extinguishment, or at least by apprehensions of their being endangered. It might seem that little or nothing had been gained by the revolution, and by the substitution of an elective dynasty. This doubtless it was the interest of the Stuart party to maintain or insinuate; and, in the conflict of factions, those who, with far opposite views, had separated from the court, seemed to lend them aid. The declamatory exaggerations of that able and ambitious body of men who co-operated against the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole have long been rejected; and perhaps in the usual reflux of popular opinion, his domestic administration (for in foreign policy his views, so far as he was permitted to act upon them, appear to have been uniformly judicious) has obtained of late rather an undue degree of favour. I have already observed that, for the sake of his own ascendancy in the cabinet, he kept up unnecessarily the distinctions of the whig and tory parties, and thus impaired the stability of the royal house, which it was his chief care to support. And, though his government was so far from anything oppressive or arbitrary that, considered either relatively to any former times, or to the extensive disaffection known to subsist, it was uncommonly moderate; yet, feeling or feigning alarm at the jacobite intrigues on the one hand, at the democratic tone of public sentiment and of popular writings on the other, he laboured to preserve a more narrow and oligarchical spirit than was congenial to so great and brave a people, and trusted not enough, as indeed is the general fault of ministers, to the sway of good sense and honesty over disinterested minds. But, as he never had a complete influence over his master, and knew that those who opposed him had little else in view than to seize the reins of power and manage them worse, his deviations from the straight course are more pardonable.

The clamorous invectives of this opposition, combined with the subsequent dereliction of avowed principles by many among them when in power, contributed more than anything else in our history to cast obloquy and suspicion, or even ridicule, on the name and occupation of patriots. Men of sordid and venal characters always rejoice to generalise so convenient a maxim as the non-existence of public virtue. It may not however be improbable, that many of those who took a part in this long contention, were less insincere than it has been the fashion to believe, though led too far at the moment by their own passions, as well as by the necessity of colouring highly a picture meant for the multitude, and reduced afterwards to the usual compromises and concessions, without which power in this country is ever unattainable. But waiving a topic too generally historical for the present chapter, it will be worth while to consider what sort of ground there might be for some prevalent subjects of declamation; and whether the power of government had not, in several respects, been a good deal enhanced since the beginning of the century. By the power of government I mean not so much the personal authority of the sovereign as that of his ministers, acting perhaps without his directions; which, since the reign of William, is to be distinguished, if we look at it analytically, from the monarchy itself.

I. The most striking acquisition of power by the Crown in the new model of government, if I may use such an expression, is the permanence of a regular military force. The reader cannot need to be reminded that no army existed before the civil war, that the guards in the reign of Charles II. were about 5000 men, that in the breathing-time between the peace of Ryswick and the war of the Spanish succession, the Commons could not be brought to keep up more than 7000 troops. Nothing could be more repugnant to the national prejudices than a standing army. The tories, partly from regard to the ancient usage of the constitution, partly, no doubt, from a factious or disaffected spirit, were unanimous in protesting against it. The most disinterested and zealous lovers of liberty came with great suspicion and reluctance into what seemed so perilous an innovation. But the court, after the accession of the house of Hanover, had many reasons for insisting upon so great an augmentation of its power and security. It is remarkable to perceive by what stealthy advances this came on. Two long wars had rendered the army a profession for men in the higher and middling classes, and familiarised the nation to their dress and rank; it had achieved great honour for itself and the English name; and in the nature of mankind the patriotism of glory is too often an overmatch for that of liberty. The two kings were fond of warlike policy, the second of war itself; their schemes, and those of their ministers, demanded an imposing attitude in negotiation, which an army, it was thought, could best give; the cabinet was for many years entangled in alliances, shifting sometimes rapidly, but in each combination liable to produce the interruption of peace. In the new system which rendered the houses of parliament partakers in the executive administration, they were drawn themselves into the approbation of every successive measure, either on the propositions of ministers, or as often happens more indirectly, but hardly less effectually, by passing a negative on those of their opponents.

Permanent military force.—The number of troops for which a vote was annually demanded, after some variations, in the first years of George I., was, during the whole administration of Sir Robert Walpole, except when the state of Europe excited some apprehension of disturbance, rather more than 17,000 men, independent of those on the Irish establishment, but including the garrisons of Minorca and Gibraltar. And this continued with little alteration to be our standing army in time of peace during the eighteenth century.